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Before her Neapolitan Quartet made her an international literary star, Elena Ferrante published The Days of Abandonment. Ferrante has never bee photographed or interviewed and goes by a pseudonym, but on the basis of this novel we believe she is a woman.

The Days of Abandonment, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein, is the story of Olga, a writer who lives in Turin with her husband Mario, their small children Ilaria and Gianni, and their dog Otto. Suddenly Mario announces that he is leaving her for another woman, and Olga falls apart.

She is furious at Mario, whom she thought was happy in their marriage, and furious at the other woman whose existence she didn’t suspect. She is so depressed she can’t get out of bed and can’t look after her children and especially the dog. She neglects to bathe, forgets to pay the bills, rails at the phone company for disconnecting the service. She plots to get Mario back, then heaps curses on him. She drives around his neighborhood hoping to spot him and the woman who replaced her. She is shocked at how vulgar and uncouth she becomes. She is so broken up she can’t even trust herself to get the door open.

We have read novels and seen movies about women dealing with the dissolution of their marriage. None of them pulls us into the chaos the way this novel does, or shreds us in the emotional turbulence. Often we had to shut the book and take great gulps of air because we felt like we were drowning. There is nothing pretty or picturesque about Olga’s disintegration, and Ferrante’s novel is unsparing. The visceral ugliness is rendered in the most compelling prose.

We cannot claim to know what Olga is going through. We do not sympathize; we don’t even like her. At times we find her repulsive and we hear ourselves saying, “Get a grip, woman. Pull yourself together.” But there is something impressive in the way she lets herself go, sinking deeper and deeper in this whirlpool of untidy feeling. We recommend The Days of Abandonment highly, but cannot be responsible for the consequences.